Description

Reverse-engineering Ian Bicking's brain: inside pip and virtualenv

Presented by Carl Meyer

Pip and virtualenv: many use them; not so many understand just how they
work their magic. If you're a pip/virtualenv user but haven't yet dared
crack the lid (or you have, and found it a bit difficult to follow),
come along for a fast-paced guided tour. Knowing these tools will help
you make more effective use of them, and might also turn you into a
contributor.

Abstract

Pip and virtualenv are widely used in the Python world, but for the size
of their user base don't receive many code contributions, and many users
have misconceptions about how they actually work.

This talk will cover a bit of advanced use of pip and virtualenv, but
mostly we'll dive into the source code, mapping it out with a high-level
view and diving into the guts of particularly interesting bits. By the
end of the talk, you'll have a good idea exactly how pip and virtualenv
do their magic, and where to go looking in the source for particular
behaviors or bug fixes. We'll walk through the creation of a virtualenv
step-by-step, and trace a typical "pip install -r requirements.txt" and
"pip uninstall" through the code paths they follow.